Comparing survey responses from 1994, 2004 and 2014, Pew Research Center finds that Americans have become increasingly polarized in their self-avowed political ideology and partisan conformity. Pew illustrates these findings in a series of correctly colored graphs:
Why is this bad? I'll tell you why. For one thing, an electorate composed largely of two opposing groups of staunch, uncompromising partisans is likely to elect representatives who are likewise uncompromising, and influence representatives into becoming less compromising (for contrary to those who claim that billionaires buy elections and that corporations own representatives, elected officials really do listen to and try to parrot the views of their constituents whose votes they need). A legislature composed of uncompromising legislators is an ineffectual body, crippled in the skills required for drafting, passing and repealing laws. This is glaringly evident in the impotence and dereliction of the past several Congresses. (Partisans will surely blame the ineffectiveness of recent Congresses on the other party.)
Moreover, staunch political polarization skews issues into false dichotomies. No legislative bill is good or bad because it is supposedly left or right. Policies, laws, proposals and issues should be evaluated on their merits, not on the basis of their partisan provenance. Many Americans who hate or have unqualified praise for the ACA on partisan grounds conveniently overlook the fact that Obamacare was Romneycare first.
True to form, Americans also exhibit the most irrational and socially destructive characteristics of political polarization, expressing highly negative views of members of the opposing party:
which feeds into an attitude of seeing the opposing party as "a threat to the nation's well-being":
and the desire to insulate oneself from people of the opposing party:
Pew found that few Americans generally would voice disappointment over a family member marrying someone of the opponent party, but among those who identify as unwavering conservatives or liberals, disapproval of such a prospect is great amplified.
If this increasing political polarization truly represented ideological entrenchment or "consistency" (Pew's term), it might at least be somewhat understandable. But that apparently isn't really what's going on. Evidence shows that self-identifying staunch Republicans/conservatives and Democrats/liberals do not formulate their political opinions by way of an independent, unbiased assessment of the issues or proposals. Rather, their opinions are more the product of party allegiance.
As part of a sequence of studies conducted by Yale University psychology professor Geoffrey Cohen in 2003, participants (psychology students) who identified as unwavering Democrat/liberal or Republican/conservative were asked to rate their support of or opposition to one of two social welfare policies:
https://ed.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/party_over_policy_0.pdf
One would think that staunch Democrats would readily support the “generous policy” and Republicans favor the “stringent policy”. But the researchers also informed (half) the Democrat participants that 95% of House Republicans (and only 10% of Democrats) endorsed the “generous policy,” while informing (half) the Republican participants that 95% of House Democrats (and only 10% of Republicans) endorsed the “stringent policy”. This reference-group information was augmented by including fabricated statements of support or opposition by party leaders. The results (my bolding):
This is despite the fact that participants claimed that the factors by which they arrived at their positions were the “details of the proposal” and their own “philosophy of government,” and that the position of their respective parties was inconsequential to their support or opposition. In other words, partisans were blind to the impact of their own party allegiance in the formulation of their opinions.
In one of Cohen’s subsequent studies, participants (limited to those identifying as liberal, because of the larger pool of this subset) were asked to write an editorial on “a social program aimed at helping poor families to achieve economic self-sufficiency.”
Participants were given a report (actually fabricated), formatted to resemble an article from the Economist. The report described a government-funded program that “would guarantee both job training and gainful employment . . . to poor people who receive welfare benefits and to those whose benefits have ended.” Beyond assisting the poor, the program also had three specific features -- a tax incentive to encourage businesses to hire disadvantaged people, mandatory participation for welfare recipients, and projected economic benefits such as higher employment rates.
When no information on party endorsement or opposition was given to participants, 76% wrote positive editorials on this program. When informed that their party opposed the program, about the same percentage of participants submitted negative editorials. Again, this is while participants denied that their party’s position on the program significantly influenced their opinion; rather, they claimed their opinion was based on the content of the program and their own philosophy of government. In other words, this study again revealed partisans’ blindness to the influence of the own party allegiance in formulating their opinions. Not only were participants blind to their own partisan bias, they wrongly viewed others as more conformist to party dictates and less logical in formulating opinions than themselves.
Partisan bias is a type of bigotry, an irrational animus toward another group. Indeed, in another series of studies published in 2014, Stanford U. political science professor Shanto Iyengar and Princeton U. post-doc researcher Sean Westwood showed that partisan bias is stronger among Americans now than racist bigotry:
http://pcl.stanford.edu/research/2014/iyengar-ajps-group-polarization.pdf
In the study whose findings struck me as most disturbing, partisan participants demonstrated their willingness to deny deserving high school graduates a college scholarship, which was intended to be awarded on academic merit, due to the merely offhand mention of the student's extraciricular participation in an opposing party-affiliated activity, and instead awarded the scholarship to a less deserving student who was associated with the participants' party. Other studies showed participants' greater trust and generosity toward others on the basis of party affiliation, even when doing so ran counter to participants' own interests, and participants negatively evaluated those affiliated with the opposing political party for traits that they positively evaluated when exhibited by people of their own party.
It's all highly irrational, mean-spirited and anti-productive.
How might this trend of increasing partisan bias be addressed? Can it be addressed? Or are Americans just doomed to ever uglier expressions of irrational hostility and gridlock due to partisan bias?
Why is this bad? I'll tell you why. For one thing, an electorate composed largely of two opposing groups of staunch, uncompromising partisans is likely to elect representatives who are likewise uncompromising, and influence representatives into becoming less compromising (for contrary to those who claim that billionaires buy elections and that corporations own representatives, elected officials really do listen to and try to parrot the views of their constituents whose votes they need). A legislature composed of uncompromising legislators is an ineffectual body, crippled in the skills required for drafting, passing and repealing laws. This is glaringly evident in the impotence and dereliction of the past several Congresses. (Partisans will surely blame the ineffectiveness of recent Congresses on the other party.)
Moreover, staunch political polarization skews issues into false dichotomies. No legislative bill is good or bad because it is supposedly left or right. Policies, laws, proposals and issues should be evaluated on their merits, not on the basis of their partisan provenance. Many Americans who hate or have unqualified praise for the ACA on partisan grounds conveniently overlook the fact that Obamacare was Romneycare first.
True to form, Americans also exhibit the most irrational and socially destructive characteristics of political polarization, expressing highly negative views of members of the opposing party:
which feeds into an attitude of seeing the opposing party as "a threat to the nation's well-being":
and the desire to insulate oneself from people of the opposing party:
Pew found that few Americans generally would voice disappointment over a family member marrying someone of the opponent party, but among those who identify as unwavering conservatives or liberals, disapproval of such a prospect is great amplified.
If this increasing political polarization truly represented ideological entrenchment or "consistency" (Pew's term), it might at least be somewhat understandable. But that apparently isn't really what's going on. Evidence shows that self-identifying staunch Republicans/conservatives and Democrats/liberals do not formulate their political opinions by way of an independent, unbiased assessment of the issues or proposals. Rather, their opinions are more the product of party allegiance.
As part of a sequence of studies conducted by Yale University psychology professor Geoffrey Cohen in 2003, participants (psychology students) who identified as unwavering Democrat/liberal or Republican/conservative were asked to rate their support of or opposition to one of two social welfare policies:
The “generous policy” version offered almost $800 per month to a family with one child, an extra $200 for every additional child, full medical insurance, $2,000 in food stamps, extra subsidies for housing and day care, a job training program, and 2 years of paid tuition at a community college. While it limited benefits to 8 years, it guaranteed a job after benefits ended, and it reinstated aid if the family had another child. By contrast, the “stringent policy” version provided only $250 per month and $50 for each additional child. It offered only partial medical insurance, and imposed a lifetime limit of 1.5 years without the possibility of reinstating aid. In contrast to the generous policy, the stringent one provided no food stamps, housing, day care, job training, paid work, or college tuition. By real-world standards, the contrast between the two policies was stark. No existing program was more generous than the generous one featured here -- almost all real-world programs provided less than $700 per month and limited lifetime benefits to 5 years or fewer; none provided all the additional services supplied in the generous policy used in the present research (see State Policy Documentation Project, 2001; Wetzstein, 2002). Likewise, no existing program was more stringent than the stringent one presented here -- almost all real-world programs provided more than $250 per month, and virtually none imposed a time limit shorter than 2 years.
https://ed.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/party_over_policy_0.pdf
One would think that staunch Democrats would readily support the “generous policy” and Republicans favor the “stringent policy”. But the researchers also informed (half) the Democrat participants that 95% of House Republicans (and only 10% of Democrats) endorsed the “generous policy,” while informing (half) the Republican participants that 95% of House Democrats (and only 10% of Republicans) endorsed the “stringent policy”. This reference-group information was augmented by including fabricated statements of support or opposition by party leaders. The results (my bolding):
Attitude data were examined using a 2 (participant ideology: liberal or conservative) x 2 (policy content: generous or stringent) x 2 (reference group information: Democrats favor or Republicans favor) analysis of variance (ANOVA). As predicted, reference group information was the most influential of the three independent variables. The relevant interaction involving participant ideology and reference group information proved highly significant, F(1, 64) = 120.81, p < .001. Regardless of whether the policy was generous or stringent, liberal participants supported it if told that Democrats supported it (M = 5.46) and they opposed it if told Democrats opposed it (M = 3.15), t(64) = 7.67, p < .001. Likewise, conservative participants supported the policy if told that Republicans supported it (M = 5.49) and they opposed it if told Republicans opposed it (M = 2.69), t(64) = 7.89, p < .001. (See Table 1 for the relevant cell means.) By contrast, policy content had no direct effect for either partisan group; the relevant interaction involving participant ideology and policy content was not significant, F < 1.
This is despite the fact that participants claimed that the factors by which they arrived at their positions were the “details of the proposal” and their own “philosophy of government,” and that the position of their respective parties was inconsequential to their support or opposition. In other words, partisans were blind to the impact of their own party allegiance in the formulation of their opinions.
In one of Cohen’s subsequent studies, participants (limited to those identifying as liberal, because of the larger pool of this subset) were asked to write an editorial on “a social program aimed at helping poor families to achieve economic self-sufficiency.”
Participants were given a report (actually fabricated), formatted to resemble an article from the Economist. The report described a government-funded program that “would guarantee both job training and gainful employment . . . to poor people who receive welfare benefits and to those whose benefits have ended.” Beyond assisting the poor, the program also had three specific features -- a tax incentive to encourage businesses to hire disadvantaged people, mandatory participation for welfare recipients, and projected economic benefits such as higher employment rates.
When no information on party endorsement or opposition was given to participants, 76% wrote positive editorials on this program. When informed that their party opposed the program, about the same percentage of participants submitted negative editorials. Again, this is while participants denied that their party’s position on the program significantly influenced their opinion; rather, they claimed their opinion was based on the content of the program and their own philosophy of government. In other words, this study again revealed partisans’ blindness to the influence of the own party allegiance in formulating their opinions. Not only were participants blind to their own partisan bias, they wrongly viewed others as more conformist to party dictates and less logical in formulating opinions than themselves.
Partisan bias is a type of bigotry, an irrational animus toward another group. Indeed, in another series of studies published in 2014, Stanford U. political science professor Shanto Iyengar and Princeton U. post-doc researcher Sean Westwood showed that partisan bias is stronger among Americans now than racist bigotry:
When defined in terms of social identity and affect toward co-partisans and opposing partisans, the polarization of the American electorate has dramatically increased. We document the scope and consequences of affective polarization of partisans using implicit, explicit and behavioral indicators. Our evidence demonstrates that hostile feelings for the opposing party are ingrained or automatic in voters’ minds, and that affective polarization based on party is just as strong as polarization based on race. We further show that party cues exert powerful effects on non-political judgments and behaviors. Partisans discriminate against opposing partisans, and do so to a degree that exceeds discrimination based on race. We note that the willingness of partisans to display open animus for opposing partisans can be attributed to the absence of norms governing the expression of negative sentiment and that increased partisan affect provides an incentive for elites to engage in confrontation rather than cooperation.
http://pcl.stanford.edu/research/2014/iyengar-ajps-group-polarization.pdf
In the study whose findings struck me as most disturbing, partisan participants demonstrated their willingness to deny deserving high school graduates a college scholarship, which was intended to be awarded on academic merit, due to the merely offhand mention of the student's extraciricular participation in an opposing party-affiliated activity, and instead awarded the scholarship to a less deserving student who was associated with the participants' party. Other studies showed participants' greater trust and generosity toward others on the basis of party affiliation, even when doing so ran counter to participants' own interests, and participants negatively evaluated those affiliated with the opposing political party for traits that they positively evaluated when exhibited by people of their own party.
It's all highly irrational, mean-spirited and anti-productive.
How might this trend of increasing partisan bias be addressed? Can it be addressed? Or are Americans just doomed to ever uglier expressions of irrational hostility and gridlock due to partisan bias?
